Rolls goes on a roll: Luxury brands to produce fleets of electric cars

Watch and automotive history was made 110 years ago when a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost moved from London to Edinburgh and helped cement the future of the motor car.

Designed as an ‘Experimental Speed ​​Car’, the Silver Ghost won the 1911 Test of Speed, Reliability and Endurance Closed in Top Gear for a full return journey of 799 miles.

Last month the same car repeated half the feat in two days from the Royal Automobile Club in London’s Pall Mall (which oversaw the original testing) to Edinburgh, repeating as much of the original route as possible.

And this week Rolls-Royce is once again creating history. On Wednesday, the company unveiled a sleek coupe-like limousine to coincide with the release of the new 007 film – called the ‘Spectre’ – which will launch as the first full-electric Rolls-Royce in late 2023.

The Specter will cost between £400,000 and £500,000, and the company has said all of its cars will be electric by 2030.

The owners believe it to be the most important moment in Rolls-Royce history since the honor was presented to Charles Rolls and engineer Sir Henry Royce.

The Rolls-Royce partnership began in 1904 – but its origins can be traced back to the business founded in 1884 by Sir Henry Royce (one of the first electrical engineers).

place in history

Royce built his first motor car in 1904 and met his new partner in May of that year. They reached a deal to sell Royce cars exclusively for Rolls under the name Rolls-Royce.

Rolls championed and owned an early electric car. He also had a charging station for Brugham Electric Cars in his showroom in Fulham.

In 1904, he also agreed to become an agent for the Kontel electromobile electric car, but upon seeing Royce’s motor car, he canceled the deal. And so the internal combustion engine came to dominate motoring.

Lawrence of Arabia, the British Army and the Maharaja of India were all admirers of Rolls-Royce’s off-road prowess, as demonstrated in the reliability tests of 1907.

Also in 1907, businessman Frank Norbury brought the brand to India by driving the Silver Ghost 620 miles to Kolhapur, Maharashtra, through mountainous terrain.

In World War I, British commanders used armored Rolls-Royces to drive across crater-marked landscapes. They were also taken to China, Russia and the Middle East.

An October 1922 Tank Corps journal noted: ‘The most outstanding event since the war has been the journey of three Rolls-Royce armored cars from Jerusalem to Baghdad.’

Beatle John Lennon had a Rolls Royce with a yellow psychedelic pattern.

And Russian revolutionary communist leader Vladimir Lenin couldn’t help but be seduced—enjoying a specially adapted half-track Silver Ghost with skis for the winter.

driving-on

Since 1998, Rolls-Royce has been headed by BMW after a fight with Volkswagen.

The result was that BMW secured the brand and built a factory in Goodwood, where the first car to be manufactured and launched in 2003 was a modern Phantom.

In the past decade, Rolls-Royce has produced two experimental electric prototypes.

In 2011, I road-tested the Phantom EE (codename 102EX), based on the existing Phantom, replacing its 6.75-liter V12 petrol engine and gear-box with a lithium-ion battery pack and two electric motors, which gave it 60 miles. Extended per hour. seconds with top speed limited to 100 mph.

Rolls-Royce acknowledged that it won praise for near-silent performance and innovation, including inductive or “wireless” charging, but the 125-mile range and 20-hour charging time remained “significant constraints.”

The second was the Electric Royce 2016 Vision Next 100 (103EX), which took a three-year world tour.

And now we have what Rolls-Royce chief executive Torsten Müller-Otvos calls the ‘real thing’ – not a prototype, but a production car.

“Spectre” may echo James Bond’s nemesis crime syndicate but for Rolls-Royce it continues the ethereal naming pattern joining Phantom, Wraith, and Ghost.

Mr Müller-Otvos said: ‘Electric motors are not new to Rolls-Royce. Sir Henry Royce’s first venture created the dynamo and patented the bayonet-style light bulb.

‘We are not satisfied that the technology available can support the Rolls-Royce experience. till now.

‘The electric drive is exclusive and perfectly suited for Rolls-Royce. It is silent, refined and produces torque almost instantaneously while generating tremendous power.

Rolls-Royce says electric power is a propulsion system whose time has come. The internal combustion engine wasn’t the only option in the 1900s – steam and electricity were around as well.

Steam proved impractical. While Electric ‘lost the battle’ for two reasons: limited range and the absence of charging stations – challenges that remain somewhat still remain.

‘But the characteristics that first attracted engineers to power – instant torque, tremendous power and the absence of exhaust fumes – remain highly attractive,’ Mr Müller-Otvos continued.

‘Some have speculated that, if he had solved the range and charging issues, Sir Henry Royce would have chosen electric power alone for his cars.’

Now have a thought.